Free market ideology and deregulation in Colorado’s oil fields: Evidence for triple movement activism?

Unconventional oil and gas extraction (UOGE) has spurred an unprecedented boom in onshore production in the US. Despite a surge in related research, a void exists regarding inquiries into policy outcomes and perceptions. To address this, support for federal regulatory exemptions for UOGE is examined using survey data collected in 2015 from two Northern Colorado communities. Current regulatory exemptions for UOGE can be understood as components of broader societal processes of neoliberalization. Free market ideology increases public support for federal regulatory exemptions for UOGE. Perceived negative impacts do not necessarily drive people to support increased federal regulation. Utilizing neo-Polanyian theory, interaction between free market ideology and perceived negative impacts is explored. Free market ideology appears to moderate people’s views of regulation: increasing the effect of perceived negative impacts while simultaneously increasing support for deregulation. To conclude, the ways in which free market ideology might normalize the impacts of UOGE activity are discussed.     

Another avenue of action: an examination of climate change countermovement industries’ use of PAC donations and their relationship to Congressional voting over time

The political mobilization of American business elites in the 1970s and 1980s has been well studied by political scientists. Environmental sociologists have explored how industries in this elite countermovement have organized to prevent environmental legislation. The literature often focuses on the efforts of this movement to shape public opinion on climate change. However, political scientists argue business elites are running several parallel strategies simultaneously in order to protect their interests. FEC data are utilized in multilevel logit models to examine how donations from industrial Political Action Committees (PACs) relate to Congressional representative’s environmental voting behavior over a 20-year period. Industries associated with the environmental countermovement have increasingly used PAC donations over time, and every additional $10,000 a representative received from countermovement industries significantly decreased odds of their taking the pro-environmental stance even when controlling for representatives’ demographics, districts, Congressional polarization and time-period.     

Why does the United States lack a global warming policy? The corporate inner circle versus public interest sector elites

Why has the United States not adopted global warming policies? Because the inner circle of the corporate elite has opposed these policies despite some corporate support for cap-and-trade and other policies. Pro- and anti-positions taken by think tanks that have led the policy debate in the post-Kyoto period are analyzed in order to demonstrate this. The corporate and upper class social ties of the directors of these pro- and anti-think tanks are examined, revealing a corporate elite split between the inner circle opposing these policies, and a ‘public interest sector’ of corporate law and media corporations along with top executives from higher education and other nonprofits that is supportive of policies addressing global warming. To enable adoption of major global warming policies, the corporate inner circle will need to become supportive and forge a class-wide corporate consensus on the need to address global warming.     

2008年江苏持续性降雪中的水汽和动力抬升机制分析

2008年1月下旬江苏省出现了历史罕见的持续性暴雪过程,研究发现,降雪量的大小与低空急流的日变化相对应,暴雪过程中700 hPa西南急流对水汽的输送起着重要的作用,作为大尺度天气系统,700 hPa急流的加速发生在降雪量增大之前,其值阈大小与6 h降雪量之间没有对应关系,急流减弱在暴雪结束以后;降雪的发生和发展与南北风的增大和冷暖平流有关,低层偏北风作为冷垫对暖湿气流的抬升和水汽的凝结起到了一定的作用;江苏降雪过程中水汽主要来源于700～500 hPa,低层东风气流对黄海南部的水汽输送非常有限;强降雪的发生与700 hPa水汽通量散度相对应,水汽通量散度辐合增大,降雪量增大;在降雪过程中垂直运动对降雪量的大小有很好的指示意义。     

Short-term changes in mobile dunes at Port Alfred,South Africa

Development along the western beachfront of Port Alfred, which is situated along a sandy shoreline, increased markedly in the 1960s as the coastal town became a popular holiday resort. This development included the removal of coastal vegetation, which resulted in the destabilization of dunes and migration of sand westerly onto the road, West Beach parking lot, and lawns of the cabanas. Sand traps were constructed to collect sand blowing across the dunes over set periods, and the net sand movement along the mobile dune belt was calculated using Hunter's equation. The dunes show an easterly movement of sand at a rate of 3.5 m/yr, which is comparable with figures recorded along other areas of this coastline. Considering the wind regime and amount of sand movement along this coast, it is inappropriate to clear vegetation and develop within the dune region.     

ASSESSING FLUSHING-FLOW REQUIREMENTS FOR BROWN TROUT SPAWNING GRAVELS IN STEEP STREAMS1

Flushing flows are re1eses from dams designed to remove fine sediment from downstream spawning habitat. We evaluated flushing flows on reaches proposed for hydroelectric diversions on seven streams in the eastern Sierra Nevada, California, with wild populations of brown trout (Salmo trutta). The stream reaches are steep (average map slopes range from 7 to 17 percent), are dominated by boulder cascades, and afford few opportunities for gravel deposition. Methods for estimating flushing flows from flow records, developed from studies in other localities, produced widely differing results when applied to the study streams, probably reflecting differences in the hydrologic and geomorphic characteristics of the streams on which the methods were developed. Tracer gravel experiments demonstrated that all sampled gravels were washed out by the flows of 1986, a wet year. Size analyses of gravel samples and hydraulic data from field surveys were used in tractive-force calculations in an attempt to specify the flow required to flush the gravels. However, these calculations produced some unrealistic results because the flows were nonuniform in the study reaches. This suggests that the tractive-force approach may not be generally applicable to small, steep streams where nonuniform flow conditions prevail.     

Mobilising social energy against environmental challenge: understanding the groundwater recharge movement in western India

This paper explores a large-scale and growing popular movement to augment groundwater recharge in the Saurashtra region of western India, an area that has been facing acute water scarcity and other associated problems. As a social phenomenon, the movement is at an early stage of its development. However, it is interesting to study it for many reasons. First, even a decade after it began, it is still growing in scale and following. Second, it is entirely spontaneous and internally driven, necessitating no public resources or support. Third, early indications are that its social and ecological impacts are beneficial and highly significant. Fourth, the movement was catalysed and spearheaded by spiritual and religious institutions, which made ingenious use of non-economic messages and motivators in forging a new natural resource ethic based on a broad, collective rationality among movement members. It appears, however, that beyond a threshold, the movement acquired a logic and energy of its own which might fuel its future sustainability and growth. Finally, the movement has important lessons to offer because mobilising social energy on such a scale and intensity can perhaps be one of most effective responses to many of the environmental challenges the world faces today.     

生态环境与洪旱灾害

作者将自然运动与人类活动、生态环境与气候结合起来研究，求索洪旱灾害之谜，着重探讨了其中多种生态环境因素。由大灾后的反思，找出灾害加剧的人为原因是：人中激增、生态危机、水利失修等，提出必须加强防灾减灾的对策研究。     

大空间火灾烟气流动的动态显示研究

讨论了火灾烟气流动过程的计算机动态模拟方法。利用Ｄｅｌｐｈｉ可视化编程工具,建立了一个融区域模拟计算和计算机动态显示于一体的火灾发展的模拟软件,并以中国科技大学的大空间建筑火灾实验厅为对象,对典型火灾羽流及烟气层的发展过程进行了动态显示。     

对华北GPS监测区近期地壳应变连续分布的估计

直接利用华北ＧＰＳ监测网各个测点的位移观测值,借助高斯型位移协方差函数通过最小二乘配置建立连续分布的位移函数,并根据应变与位移的偏导关系,对华北ＧＰＳ监测区１９９２～１９９５年、１９９５～１９９６年最大剪应变及面膨胀连续分布进行估算,得到其应变场动态图像。